


New Beginnings

by raphaelsantiagosavedhimself



Category: The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Gen, Homelessness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 09:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8619265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raphaelsantiagosavedhimself/pseuds/raphaelsantiagosavedhimself
Summary: Set after Maia becomes a werewolf and runs away from home.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted on my tumblr (URL same as username)

The rain came down in sheets and Maia was cold, hungry and tired. The last thing she’d eaten was a few scraps scrounged out of a garbage can the night before. She wondered if her parents were looking for her.

Maybe.

She wondered if they missed her.

Maybe.

Maybe now they had lost both of their children, they’d want her back. But she was never going back. She couldn’t. Not the way she was now. No one wanted a monster for a daughter.

She heard pounding music somewhere nearby. She could feel the vibrations of it through the ground. She could smell the stench of sweating, intoxicated people all packed into one room. She would never have been able to sense those things before she became a monster. It was useful for smelling out sources of food, but she wouldn’t need to do that if she wasn’t a monster in the first place.

A girl with huge butterfly wings protruding from her back passed Maia. She gave Maia an appraising look but said nothing as they crossed paths. It wasn’t the first time Maia had seen someone like that. They were everywhere now, ever since her first transformation. People with horns or purple skin or eyes that were all red or black, no whites or pupils at all. And, once, a man with fangs who drank blood from the side of a girl’s neck. The others she was unsure of, but Maia didn’t need anyone to tell her what that man was. After what had happened to her, she wasn’t sure if she was shocked by the existence of vampires or not. If she was, she’d had to get over it fast, though. When the vampire saw her looking, he’d thrown the girl he was feeding from onto the ground and leaped at Maia.

Maia rounded a corner and came within sight of the nightclub. The flashing red lights above the door spelled out the word ‘Pandemonium’. Maia considered it for a moment, pulling her soaked coat tight around herself. She knew this was a place for the strange people she had been seeing. The vampires and the ones with wings and horns and talons. Maybe people like her, too? She didn’t know if she wanted to meet anyone else like her. Anyone else like Jordan.

But it was shelter, and it would be warm.

She took a deep breath and entered Pandemonium.

She had been right. They were everywhere. But none of them paid Maia any attention as she pushed her way through the crowd, keeping her head down, until she found an empty table. She sat down with a sigh of relief as the weight was taken off her sore feet.

Only when she was safely sat down did she look around. There were two people at the table next to hers, a boy and a girl. The boy was clearly a vampire, Maia could see his fangs and smell the blood in his glass. She didn’t know about the girl. She looked like a fairly ordinary, though very pretty, girl with long blonde hair. Except she had those strange eyes, the ones without whites or pupils. They were a bright shade of baby blue.

She hoped the vampire stayed away from her. She didn’t want to fight again. She had won the last one out of sheer luck. The vampire obviously hadn’t expected her to put up much of a fight, even after she had transformed. She didn’t think she’d have that kind of luck twice.

She wondered if the people at the bar would give her a glass of water for free. Was water free here? Would they even have water here? Would they serve her at the bar? Or would they take one look at her and throw her out? She supposed it was going to be another night of changing into her other form and lapping up rainwater out of puddles.

Would anyone notice if she put her head down on the table and went to sleep? Would they assume she was drunk and leave her alone? Or would that get her thrown out too? She was so tired. It was two days since she last slept.

The music pounded around her and the floor shook with the weight of dancing feet. She could smell skin and sweat and alcohol and blood and it all gave her a headache but she was too tired to care.

‘Hey. Werewolf girl.’

Maia’s head jerked up. She had fallen asleep. The voice was so close. The vampire boy leaned over her table. Maia felt a spasm of revulsion at his nearness. Everything about him was _wrong_. He was a dead thing. A creature that lived on the life of others. She pushed back from the table, away from him, with so much force that her chair tipped backwards. The boy moved so fast he was a blur and caught the chair before it hit the floor, setting it to rights.

Maia heard a low growling noise and realised it was coming from her own throat. Her teeth had sharpened to points and claws protruded from between her knuckles.

‘Elliott,’ the vampire boy’s girlfriend warned.

The boy raised his hands in a surrendering gesture and stepped away from Maia. ‘Take it easy,’ he said, his brown eyes wide. ‘I just wanted to check you were okay. You’ve been sleeping for hours.’

‘Hours?’

‘Been about three hours,’ the boy said. ‘I was worried about you.’

‘Why?’

His brow furrowed. ‘Because you’re sleeping in a nightclub all on your own, you’re filthy, and you look like you haven’t eaten in days.’

‘Why do you care?’ Maia asked.

‘Why wouldn’t I?’

‘Because you’re— Because I’m—’ The words wouldn’t come out right. She wasn’t even sure what she wanted to say.

‘Listen,’ the boy said. ‘I’ve got no problem with werewolves. You just looked like you could use some help.’

Maia had never used that word before. She knew what she was, but she’d never admitted it to herself yet. The boy could tell what she was just by looking at her. What gave it away?

‘Come on, Elliott,’ the girl with the strange blue eyes said, tugging the boy’s sleeve. ‘She doesn’t want your help.’

The boy looked at Maia for a moment longer and there was obvious indecision on his face. Unsure whether to keep trying or to just leave her. Maia said nothing and eventually the boy nodded.

‘Sorry,’ he said. He turned away.

The girl looked at Maia with an expression she couldn’t read and then followed after her boyfriend.

Maia put her face in her hands. Her teeth returned to normal and the claws retracted back into her hands. She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. She didn’t know why she’d reacted like that. Help was exactly what she needed. She couldn’t live like this forever. But there was something about being near vampires that just felt wrong, no matter how nice they were. She felt a wave of shame at this. She wouldn’t like it if anyone reacted to her like that, especially not when she was trying to help them. She considered going after the boy and apologising, but when she looked up again he had vanished through the crowd. She didn’t fancy wandering around the nightclub looking for him.

She put her head back into her hands and sighed. Part of her wished she could go back to sleep, but she knew she wouldn’t now. She thought she should probably get up and leave, but she didn’t want to. She had nowhere else to go.

There was the sound of a glass being placed on her table and she looked up again. A boy had sat down opposite her. Not the vampire boy. This boy looked almost ordinary apart from the large scar on the side of his face. He was looking at Maia with an expression of concern.

He was like her. She could sense it. Just like the vampire boy had been able to sense it about her.

‘Elliott asked me to come and see if you were okay,’ he said. ‘He said you didn’t react too well to him.’  

‘He’s a vampire,’ Maia said, as if the boy wasn’t aware of that already.

He smiled. ‘There’s no harm in him.’

‘Who are you?’

‘My name’s Bat,’ he said. ‘I’m the DJ here.’

Maia raised her eyebrows. ‘So why did the DJ take a break to come and speak to me?’

‘Elliott said he thinks you’re lost, or packless.’

‘Packless?’

‘You don’t belong to a werewolf pack.’

‘They really live in packs?’

‘You’re very new to this aren’t you?’

Maia wanted to give a sarcastic retort, but there was no sarcasm or malice in Bat’s tone.

‘My ex bit me,’ she said. ‘I ran away from home.’

He nodded. ‘I understand.’

‘Do you?’

‘I’m a werewolf, too,’ Bat said. ‘I’ve been where you are. And you can stay here if you like, wander off when Pandemonium closes, scavenge some food from someone. Or you can come with me and I’ll take you to the pack. They’ll take you in.’

‘Will they?’

He nodded again. ‘The pack will look after you…?’ He trailed off, giving her a questioning look.

‘Maia.’

‘Maia. The pack will take care of you. I promise.’

‘Okay,’ Maia said, unable to keep the gratitude out of her voice. ‘Thank you.’

‘Drink this.’ He pushed forward the glass of water he’d set down. ‘I have to get back to work, but Pandemonium closes in an hour. Wait here and I’ll come and get you, okay?’

‘Thank you,’ Maia said again.

Bat got to his feet. ‘You’re going to be okay, now,’ he promised. Then he disappeared off through the crowd.

Maia picked up the glass of water and gulped it down in four long swallows. It was the best tasting water she’d ever drank in her life. Then she put her head back down on the table and for the first time she allowed herself to cry, because it was finally over.


End file.
